There’s never been an easier time to make something look good. Templates, design systems, endless inspiration—and now AI—can generate everything from images and logos to entire brand campaigns.
But that raises a more important creative question: Can we make it mean something?
On this episode of YOUR WORLD OF CREATIVITY, host Mark Stinson talks with Cat How, founder and executive creative director of How&How, about what her agency calls “liberating ideas”—excavating the powerful idea already inside a company and finding the verbal and visual language that allows people to understand, remember, and feel it.
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cat-how-0499b9149/In This Episode, Mark and Cat Explore:
Excavating rather than inventing the big idea.
Creativity doesn’t always mean starting with a blank page. Cat describes branding as digging beneath features, competitive claims, and outdated identities to uncover the original problem a company was created to solve—and then amplifying that story.
What journalism taught Cat about branding.
Her early career writing about art and design trained her to ask questions, find the angle, and uncover the story behind the work. That experience still shapes How&How’s equal emphasis on verbal identity—tone, messaging, and language—and visual identity.
Why disruption for disruption’s sake is just more noise.
In an increasingly crowded marketplace, Cat argues that being different isn’t enough. The more useful question is: What do you want people to feel? She shares how her team looks outside a client’s immediate competitive category for unexpected emotional and cultural cues that can make a brand more memorable.
Brave creative work—and the clients willing to pursue it.
Mark and Cat discuss the relationship between creative ambition, client trust, persuasion, and business results. Sometimes the challenge isn’t convincing someone to be “brave”; it’s demonstrating why a different creative approach is strategically necessary.
Purpose, profit, and becoming a B Corp.
Cat explains how B Corp certification helped How&How examine everything from the sectors it works with to internal policies and environmental practices. The goal isn’t purpose as a marketing slogan, but building structures that help guide everyday business decisions.
Building an ambitious culture without feeding creative egos.
How&How actively hires people with opinions and ambition while creating systems designed around transparency. Cat shares how the agency’s tiered, transparent salary structure has become one tangible expression of that philosophy.
Cat’s Creative Challenge
Have an idea you’ve been keeping under wraps — a business, brand, book, drawing, or other creative project?
Start.
Don’t wait for the idea to be perfectly formed. Make something, put it into motion, let it evolve, and keep iterating. Cat points to prolific creators as a reminder that quantity can be part of the creative process: not everything will be brilliant, but doing the work creates the opportunity for the strongest ideas to emerge.
About Cat How
Cat How is founder and executive creative director of How&How, a B Corp-certified branding agency with offices in Los Angeles and London. Her background in journalism continues to inform an approach to branding built around asking better questions, uncovering the real story, and giving ideas a distinctive verbal and visual identity.
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We’ll keep traveling around the world talking with creators about how we get inspired, organize our ideas, and gain the confidence and connections to launch our work into the world.
Until next time, keep unlocking YOUR WORLD OF CREATIVITY.
